DCE, Aide In Cash-For-Teaching Jobs Scandal

• Posted on July 17, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

A teachers’ recruitment scandal has hit the Karaga district in Northern Region as multiple victims allege payment of monies to the District Chief Executive, Alhassan Yabdoo and his aide, Iddrisu Mohammed Saani, before their applications were accepted in a limited recruitment exercise conducted last year by the Ghana Education Service.

The new recruits, (victims) mostly natives and residents of Karaga and Tamale, said they were made to pay up GH2,000 for the teaching job – in the scandal allegedly initiated by the DCE but coordinated by his personal aide. Others said they paid GH400 and were made to sign an “undertaking” to forfeit initial salaries as compensation to the DCE and his aide.

The Ghana Education Service in October 2017 advertised for applications for “limited” recruitment of teachers nationwide. The exercise was to be carried out and supervised by education directorates across the country.

But, as has now been uncovered, the DCE seized hijacked and took controls over the recruitment exercise from the district education authorities, a top local education officer confirmed to Starr News.

The officer said DCE’s meddling impeded plans to use the education service’s laid down procedures for recruitment of teachers, especially in the district where official figures show an increasing number of “poor” and “incompetent” teachers.

The officer also said there was no opportunity for education directorate to vet and scrutinize the credentials of applicants, therefore he was most certainly qualified candidates were not selected.

Out of about 86 teachers transferred from the district in 2017, only 39 were replaced through the limited recruitment exercise but a considerable number of these new recruits failed to report to their schools. In the Zandua Circuit, made up of 17 schools, only ten (10) were posted, but only three have so far reported, a Starr News field investigations found.

It is unclear how many of these 39 teachers paid monies before landing the job but about four of the victims of them in a Starr News undercover findings confirmed payment. Others said they were considering breaching the “undertaking” and willing to speak up to extricate the deal with the DCE and his aide.

A recruit posted to the only Senior High School in the district (name withheld), in undercover exchanges said he paid GH2,000 and had severed ties with the aide of the DCE after he was compelled to sign the “undertaking”.

“I got it through Saani. I don’t even talk to him again. We are not fighting alright but I didn’t like the way he brought the names for us to sign”, the teacher who was invigilating an internal examination at the school said. When asked whether he was also forfeiting his one month salary in fulfillment of the undertaking, he answered: “that’s what they said”.

In response, the District Chief Executive, Alhassan Yabdoo declined to speak on record after meeting with Starr News on two different locations and time but confirmed he “hijacked” the exercise.

According to him the decision to seize control over the exercise was to secure jobs for natives of his districts to prevent what he called the indiscriminate departure of teachers posted to the interior parts of the district.

According to him, the teachers who are not natives either refuse postings to oversea communities in the district or seek for transfer within months of their stay, a situation he claims always leave schools in those areas without teachers and affecting education.

The DCE said he believed that employing only natives in the area would help solve the problem of teachers refusing postings to the far the flung villages. He again said he was not aware of any extortion and paper commitments but said he would investigate his aide whose name was mentioned by the victims.

His aide, Iddrisu Saani, who allegedly coordinated the scandal, also denied taking any money from the teachers and said it “false accusations to the highest level”.

He did not, however, deny supervising the signing of the undertaking, where the recruits are expected to forfeit their one month salary.

He justified the decision by his boss to hijack the recruitment exercise saying it was in the best interest of education in the area.

Together with his boss, they accused internal political opponents of bringing up the matter to disgrace them. Saani said his opponents who were being accused to scuttle his chances of becoming the NABCO coordinator for the district.